The schoolmarm wouldn’t stick around long anyway, once she got a look at her pupils. Not a one of them ever had. But if this was Miss Wakefield, she might learn something from the experience, and he wouldn’t lose a night’s sleep over the deception. Until he knew the truth, his crew’s jobs were safe from the likes of Sven Templeton.
“Refresh my memory,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “Why should residing with a hundred and twenty-five men not concern me?”
“Because I’ve told them to leave you alone.”
She burst into hysterical giggles and marched back through the remaining rows and into her room. He liked the sound of her laughter. It lightened the dim space.
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better? You told a hundred and twenty-five barbarians, who probably haven’t seen a single woman in months, to not bother me!”
“There are other women in camp—”
“No single women.”
“No single ones, but a woman’s a woman. The men are used to seeing them.”
She slumped weakly down on the end of her cot, and he wondered if he was pushing her too hard her first day out of Doc’s care.
She reached up to remove her bonnet. “How far is it to the school?”
“No more than a five-minute walk.” Jake crossed his arms and leaned against the doorsill. “The men are having supper now. You might want to get settled before they come back. Later, you can go on over to the cookshack. Cookee will see that you get something to eat.”
“I’ve lost my appetite.”
“If you change your mind and need anything, you know where my office is.”
“Actually, I don’t have the slightest idea. We wound through the woods for so long. How will I find you?”
“Easy. Ask anyone and they will point you in my direction.” Reaching into his breast pocket, he extracted a piece of paper and handed it to her. “By the way, here are the teacher rules. You should memorize them.”
Unfolding the paper, Tess read them aloud.
1. Teacher will fill lamps and clean chimney in schoolhouse each day.
2. Teacher will bring a bucket of water and fill the wood box for the day’s session.
3. Teacher will make pencils carefully and whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Male teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
5. After school hours, the teacher may spend the remaining time doing lessons or reading the Bible or other good books.
6. Female teachers who engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Every teacher should lay aside, from each pay, a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, or frequents pool or public halls will give the school board good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity, and honesty. Termination may follow.
9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay.
She glanced up.
“Any questions?” he asked. He watched her shake her head. “No? Most newcomers have a few.”
She glanced back at the list of rules and shook her head a second time, but he couldn’t read what was behind the blank look on her face.
“All right, then. Breakfast is four thirty sharp, dinner at noon, supper at five thirty. Weekdays, class starts at seven thirty a.m. It seems to work well for the students. See that you’re there on time. The kids get rowdy if you aren’t.”
She nodded. “All right.”
“By the way, you have permission to use a hickory switch… if you think you’re big enough.” With that he walked out and closed the door behind him.
Tess sat down on the cot, stunned. What had ever possessed her to come to Wakefield Timber camp?
I must have family. Everyone has family.
She angrily swiped at the moisture rolling down her cheeks, resenting a terrible, overpowering feeling of loneliness and desperation. She might not know who she was, but this feeling that engulfed her seemed so foreign, so wrong.
André would help her. At least he seemed civilized. She’d have him notify her family that she’d changed her mind about teaching and wished to return home. They would immediately comply with her request, and she’d be free from this frightening situation in a matter of days. She could tolerate anything short lived.
Pounding the thin mattress, she vented her frustrations while trying to even out some of the lumps. Eventually she lay down, closed her eyes, and forced herself to be calm. She would wake soon. She had to believe that. She must, or she felt that she would lose her mind.
Dear Lord, make this a bad dream. Wake me up. My family will be standing over me and we’ll laugh at the insidious nightmares I’ve been having...
A gut-wrenching, overpowering stench made her sit straight up in bed. She fumbled for a handkerchief to place over her nose and mouth. The odor was nothing she recognized. Her tiny room suddenly felt suffocating.
When the loud, raucous sound of men’s voices reached her, she realized that she must have fallen asleep. With a sinking heart, she surmised that all one hundred and twenty-five of her “close neighbors” were home.
Sliding from the cot, she kept the cloth pressed to her nose and fumbled for the inside doorknob with her right hand. She burst out of the small room gasping for a breath of fresh air, only to find none available.
When she abruptly appeared in the bunkhouse, more than a hundred pairs of male eyes swiveled to focus on her. The noise in the overheated, smoke-filled, steamy room quickly subsided.
Peering over the top of the handkerchief, she stared wide-eyed at the burly, rough-looking woodsmen who stared back at her, slack jawed.
When the silence closed in, her gaze traveled slowly around the room, trying to locate the source of the revolting stench. It didn’t take long to figure out that it was coming from the wire strung above the stove and across the room, heavy with wet socks, mitts, and shoepacs.
Tess’s gaze returned to fix on the men. They were so big. She had never witnessed such massive and steel-muscled brawn assembled under one roof. Her jaw dropped when she focused. Some had already peeled their clothes down to their heavy woolen underwear, while others still wore plaid wool shirts caked with grime and sweat, baggy woolen pants cut off midcalf, and worn leather boots.
Feeling slightly sick to her stomach, she realized she had to say something—had to explain why she had violated the sanctity of their private quarters.
Allowing the handkerchief to drop slowly away from her nose, she flashed the sea of giants a timid smile and said hesitantly, “Hello. Uh…Mr. Lannigan said to expect you.”
“Big Say?” returned a handful of deep male voices.
André recovered first, hurriedly snapping his suspenders back upon his shoulders while others reached for their pants. “Excusez-moi, Miss Yardley! We were not aware a woman was nearby.”
“I...I’m sorry, but Mr. Lannigan said that I live here now.”
“Nous sommes si désolés.”
“He said we are so sorry!” a jack supplied.
“I live in here.” She gestured helplessly toward the hatbox that was to be her new home. “Really.” She nodded as if it would help to confirm what she’d told them. “That’s what your boss says.”
“Big Say put you with us?”
She nodded and wondered why the men didn’t know she was going to be there when Jake had specifically said he’d told them to leave her alone. Even André didn’t seem to know, and he worked directly with the man. And what about Fred Massey, the man who was supposed to sleep with one eye open?
She had a few questions for Jake Lannigan.
“Uh…men.” André cleared his throat. The others continued to stare. “Permit me to introduce Miss Yardley, the new schoolmarm.”
<
br /> A polite chorus of “Nice to meet ya, ma’am” followed.
Art Medford was the first to edge forward, swiping his hand down his pants leg before shyly extending it to her. “Welcome, ma’am. You’ll have to excuse us. It’s a shock to find a woman in the midst of the bunkhouse.”
“I understand.” She accepted the gesture of friendship. “It came as quite a shock to me too.”
The jacks crowded around then, offering their callused hands and words of greeting. Tess took each chapped hand, grateful that the men were willing to accept the unconventional situation they found themselves in, but she still thought they should really do something about the smell.
“I cannot imagine Big Say putting you here with us,” André exclaimed.
She sighed. “Nor can I, but here I am.” Her eyes traveled to her space, separate from the large room, it was true, but so…close. “Please don’t let my presence bother you. I’m sure some of you have sisters or daughters. I promise to be as inconspicuous as possible.” She would make certain that the men would be up and gone before she emerged from her room in the mornings. In the evenings she would eat her supper and then retire to her rat hole. She would simply have to make do until her family could rescue her from this dreadful situation.
“I suppose if this is where the boss wants you…” The Frenchmen’s smile was sincere, but she suspected he was as puzzled by Lannigan’s choice of housing as she.
“Have you had your supper, mademoiselle?”
“No, but I’m not hungry. I’m so exhausted that I just want to go to bed.” She glanced expectantly toward the men. “If that’s acceptable?” She wasn’t sure if there was some procedure she’d be expected to follow. She’d never lived with a hundred and twenty-five men before. Absent memory or not, that much she was sure of.
“Yes, ma’am. Make yourself to home,” one of the jacks said.
“Thank you, gentlemen.” She turned and then seemed to change her mind. She walked back to André. “Oh, Mr. Montague?”
“Oui, mademoiselle.” He smiled. “Please, ma chère, call me André.”
Various hoots and catcalls broke out, and she felt color creep up the back of her neck.
“Do not mind them,” André apologized, shooting the men a look of warning. “They are imbeciles, but they mean no disrespect.”
A man stepped forward, a towering man with kind eyes. “I’m Fred, ma’am. I’ll be right proud to sleep outside your door if’n you need anything.”
Scratching his head, André smiled. “So this is why Jake had you change bunks.” He began to chuckle. “That is why he is Big Say. He knows what he is doing.”
Tess was relieved to hear Jake had at least halfway warned the men. Perhaps he was thinking of her well-being. Her doubts were put to rest, but she still had questions, but not for Jake. “Mr. Montague—André, Mr. Lannigan thought you might be able to shed some light on my past.”
The lumberjack’s forehead knitted into a frown. “Jake said this?”
“I’d like to talk to you about my family sometime tomorrow, if that would be convenient?”
“I do not know more about you than Jake does, mademoiselle, but your résumé says you do not have close kin.”
“None? No one at all? I’m alone?” She frowned at the sea of still bewildered faces.
“This is what your application says. I am most sorry.”
“Thank you, André…” She managed a smile. “I think I’ll be going to bed now.”
“Good night, ma’am,” the men chorused politely.
“Good night… and listen, I don’t want to disturb your privacy either. You will tell me if I get in your way, won’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Now, let’s see…breakfast is at four thirty?”
“Yes, ma’am. Four thirty,” André answered.
She nodded, and then she turned, walked into her room, and closed her door. Rummaging through a valise, she found a pair of shoes. She took one out and wedged the toe beneath the door.
Just to make certain Fred Massey did his job.
9
Has Lannigan lost his mind?” Jim Carten sprang down from his bunk. “She can’t live with us!”
Fifty jacks joined him and crowded around André the moment the door closed behind the schoolteacher.
“Be quiet!” André motioned for the men to lower their voices. “She will hear you.”
“Don’t make any difference,” another jack said. “How are we gonna be expected to live with a woman in here? Has Big Say lost his mind?”
“André, Lannigan can’t expect us to live with a woman!” said another man. “Why, we won’t be able to cuss or even scratch where we got an itch. It just ain’t fittin’ for a woman to share a man’s quarters—for her or us.”
The men fell silent when Tess’s door opened. She set the cat down in the main bunkhouse and glanced up. “Is something wrong, gentlemen?”
“No, ma’am,” Fred Massey said. “Just shootin’ the breeze. Sorry if we disturbed you.”
“Oh, I wasn’t in bed yet. By the way, do you mind if the cat sleeps out here? I keep feeling the need to sneeze, and I think it’s because of her.”
“It’s okay, ma’am. She likes to sleep by the stove.”
“Thank you—oh, and the tobacco smoke?” She fanned the air beneath her nose. “I hate to mention it, but would you mind smoking your pipes and cigars outdoors? I would appreciate it ever so much.”
Mumbles broke out in the room and the men shot glances at each other.
André spoke up. “I am sure this can be arranged, mademoiselle.”
“Thank you. And good night again.” She closed the door.
“Look at that!” Herb Jenson hissed. “She ain’t been here fifteen minutes, and we can’t smoke inside anymore. You better do something, Montague! And quick!”
“Shhh! Calm down! I will do my best to get it straightened out with Big Say first thing in the morning.” André snapped his suspenders loose. “For now, we sleep.”
“Talk to him tonight!” A jack jerked his head in the direction of the closed door. “How are we expected to go to sleep with a woman in the next room?”
“I am aware that Miss Yardley is attractive—”
“It wouldn’t matter if her looks would gag a maggot. She’s a woman, and most of us ain’t been around a woman in months,” Alex seethed. “It ain’t fittin’, and you have to do somethin’!”
“I understand that, but we cannot disturb Jake tonight.” André stripped off his shirt. “It is late, and you know how he is when anyone disturbs his sleep.”
“Well, I plan on disturbin’ him!” Jim declared. “We’re going to settle this thing right now!”
André climbed into his bunk. “It will wait till morning.”
Jim turned and stormed out of the bunkhouse amid whispered calls of encouragement. Ten minutes later, he returned.
Jake followed the jack into the bunkhouse and faced his crew. He had wondered how long it would take them to confront him about the new turn of events. However, the matter could have waited till morning. The men crowded around him, all talking in low voices at the same time.
“What do you think you’re doin’, Big Say?”
“Is this your idea of a joke, Lannigan?”
“She doesn’t want us to smoke inside anymore.”
“And Sweets bothers her.”
Jake lifted both hands to restore calm. “One at a time!” He glanced at Tess’s closed door. She didn’t need to hear the men’s complaints. “Maybe we’d best take this outside.” Jake turned on his heel and most of the crew followed.
Cold air whipped the men’s hair when the door closed behind them. “Now, what’s this all about?” Jake demanded. The jacks hunkered down against the harsh wind.
“You got no call to put a woman in our bunkhouse, Big Say. Ain’t you got a better place for her?”
“Put her with you,” someone suggested.
“Yes!” the jacks cho
rused.
Jake met their angry glares and tried to calm his own irritation. He knew when he decided this was the best place for the schoolteacher that there would be a ruckus. “If it makes you feel any better, men, this is only temporary.”
André faced him. “How temporary?”
“I can’t say for sure. You know as well as I do how long schoolteachers last around here. I don’t expect she’ll stay much longer than a few days.” If she was Tess Wakefield, and she remembered who she was, she wouldn’t even stay that long.
“The telegraph wire is still not completed. You keep me so busy with other things that I have not had the time or the resources to get it up. If she wanted to contact someone, she would not be able to.” André shifted from one foot to the other. “Jake, if I did not know better, I would say you are deliberately stalling.”
His friend was right. He was stalling. And God forgive him, it was for all the wrong reasons. “Fine. Take a crew and install the telegraph wire tomorrow.”
André shook his head. “Better yet, I am going to ride to Shadow Pine and wire the train line for the passenger list for the past two weeks. Someone is surely worried sick about the two women and the men swept downstream.”
“And how will you get those worried people here, André? With the weather getting worse every day, you know as well as I that it won’t be long before nobody can get in or out of here. Besides, listen to what you’re saying. It’s only been two weeks. Those families aren’t worried yet. They realize what time of year it is and that travel can be slow.”
“Forget that telegraph line! What’s the big idea of putting the woman in our bunkhouse?” Ray demanded.
“Because I have nowhere else to put her. You men know there are no available rooms or cabins in camp.”
When Love Comes My Way Page 7
